January 12, 2023
Gleanings
- Fiction is a remarkable way to conjure up a world you didn’t know. There’s a comfort in facing those questions; in imagining those answers. Simply going there put to rest so much unrest in me. I really do feel like something very deep in my psyche has been solved.
- Foreign interventions in Haiti have failed because the bases for these interventions have had little to do with supporting Haiti’s sovereignty, the rights of its people, or alleviating its financial burdens.
- There are a whole bunch of skills that we teach our kids about how to be good humans in the physical world. We teach them what it looks like to be kind, to be safe, to help others, and to learn new things. But if we never explicitly show them what those skills look like in a digital space, transferring those skills online can be very hard.
- If I have any resolution this year, it’s to try to roll with what the world offers me, rather than to wrestle life into my control.
- It hasn’t made logical sense, not from a financial perspective, nor from an artistic perspective either, really; which is why I’m curious to know: will I still be able to make a beautiful book, with alive characters, built on an elaborate structure I see in my head, if I’m not obsessed, or in pain, or seeking to soothe deep anxiety? I’m hopeful. I am.
- And then, channeling some of the greatest philosophers of our time, I started singing, “All You Need Is Love.” By the third round of the chorus, I was almost skipping, singing, “All you need is love!”
- Enough people were on twitter denouncing folks’ end-of-year summaries as “bragging” if they were too positive that I was reminded that it might not be so terrible if that site just immolates.
- Leonard wasn’t my first up-close experience with a mascot. When I was twelve, a mascot had punched me in the face.
- There is power in numbers, but united, in community, their strength lies in their common values and purpose.
- Endings. Beginnings. All pieces of the mosaic of our lives, some pieces that we can fit effortlessly into our life story, others more difficult, that require us to adjust and accept.
- Basically my mood for the next year is to hang onto what I call my Rome vibe at all costs. Because life really isn’t meant to be like that, the profound unhappiness I was dipping into on the regular.
- I woke up this morning, and like most mornings, had to re-orient myself to where I am. The rock-hard mattresses (a truly adequate description, as the girls look under the sheets to see if the bed is in fact, made of concrete) reminds me quickly that I am not at home.
- This has been an unusual year for Novel Readings, one in which my reading life was overtaken by my real life—or, since I firmly believe that “the world of books is still the world,” a better way to put it would be that my reading life changed because so did the rest of my life.
- There is shame, there is guilt, there are more than a few regrets. You are writing down the words, hoping they will make sense.
- Every year at year-end, I set goals for the upcoming year. It sounds kind of hardcore, but really it’s more of a reflection on things like, where do I want to be? what do I want to learn? what projects do I want to start and finish? how do I want my relationships to be? where do I want to travel?
- I feel the white sheet of the bed around me and think of Aida in prison. How different two friends’ lives turned out to be.
- There are no rules for good writing. There are only guidelines which will serve you 75-95% of the time.
- Let’s read more books, sing and dance more, take more walks, print photos of family moments, make some art, write some letters, play more, go barefoot, and sit with silence from time to time. Surprise yourself.
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